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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge" 
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: What made you question yourself today?
I'm going to cheat a little an actually talk about something that made me question myself yesterday. My wife and I got back from our family reunion with enough time to make our church's last service of the weekend on Sunday night, and found ourselves being treated to a sermon about love. Not romantic love, but general love and affection for our fellow human beings. The guest speaker delivering the sermon had a lot of really great perspective and interesting points, but what really struck me was when he asked this question:
What's that one thing that's keeping you from loving people the way you know you should?
For him, it was his cell phone and social media. Whenever he had a free moment, he would check his phone, surf Facebook, and do just about anything else rather than live in the moment and build relationships with the people around him, even if it was only for a few moments. It's not that he's an unpleasant guy; he just thought it was an awful lot of work to make conversation and invest in other people when it was easier to invest in an app on his phone that could pass the time.
I realized that I'm the same way, and it's due to my social awkwardness. I don't know what it is, but I don't do well in small group settings. One-on-one, I'm fine. As the center of attention in a very large group setting (like giving a speech to an auditorium, etc.), I'm also fine. But small groups of anywhere from three or four people to fifty make me really uncomfortable, and it's because I don't converse very well. When I don't know someone and I'm making small talk, the conversation tends to be awkward and staccato. When people are separated into smaller groups, I have a difficult time knowing when to transition from one to another, how to ease into a conversation other people are having, how to extract myself from one, etc. I often find myself suddenly alone and my first instinct is to pull out my phone... not because I want to be checking Facebook or my email, but because it's easier to look busy than to stand around awkwardly - all alone - wondering if/when I'll have an opportunity to join another conversation.
What the sermon made me question was why I avoid situations like that, and whether I really want to be that person. Do I want to be the person who rides an elevator in silence and flips through sports scores on my phone until one of us arrives at our floor? Or do I want to be the person who actually greets people - even strangers - in that elevator and asks them how their day is going?
The sermon really made me question myself because I want to be a more sociable person. I like people. I enjoy connecting with others and yet I often find myself playing the part of the quiet, unsociable, introverted plane seat neighbor who never looks up from the book he's reading rather than taking a few moments to greet someone and find out about who they are. Starting today, I promised myself that I would go two weeks without sticking my nose in my phone every time I felt awkward; that I would take the time to greet people whenever the opportunity presents itself.
One of the things I've discovered is that people are friendly (and a little surprised) when someone random that they don't know asks them earnestly how they're doing.
The other thing I've discovered is just how many people stick their nose in their phones to avoid conversation.  |
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Do you ever inscribe books when you gift them? Do you have books with inscriptions in? Do they make a gift more meaningful? Do they make a book more treasured? Or are they simply a form of graffiti, defacing the book and reducing the value?
I have an incredibly difficult time "defacing" any book. Inscriptions, dog-earing pages, highlighting, writing in the margins... it all makes me shudder. I just hate the idea of a beautiful thing like a book being permanently and intentionally marred. I suppose I should learn to get over this fear since at some point I hope to be a published author who will tour the world signing the damned things with a Sharpie  ... but for the time being, I have a really hard time with it.
Part of my distaste for the practice, I think, is because I used to only be able to afford used books and especially used textbooks in college. Inevitably, someone would have written in my copy, or highlighted a particular passage in a way that made it incredibly difficult to read or process on my own. It'd be a highlighted passage that I didn't think was that important but couldn't avoid looking at because it was framed in bright atomic yellow ink... or someone would make a notation that's completely wrong and I'd have to have it stuck in my head while I was studying... it was very frustrating to have to deal with those kinds of books at a time in my life when it just wasn't feasible to purchase a brand new copy that was pristine and unsullied.
The odd thing, though, is that I actually think inscriptions are a beautiful thing, especially when it comes to a gift. When I find one at a used bookstore or elsewhere, it's always fun to imagine the relationship of the gifter and giftee, and why that particular book was important (assuming it's not listed in the inscription).
I only have a few books with inscriptions in them; and most of them are author-signed copies, or used books that I've purchased with inscriptions already in them. I don't have a lot that were inscribed to me... I don't feel like inscriptions reduce the value of the book, and honestly, if I'm gifting it to someone and they want to turn around and sell it, I don't really care how much they get for it.  But I do think they can make a book more treasured and meaningful, assuming the words put into the inscription are significant to the recipient. |
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: What's the hardest thing about blogging, for you personally?
Hands down, the most difficult thing about blogging - at least for me - is remaining consistently interesting. I've never been one of those people who has incessantly updated his Facebook status, or tweeted every random thought that comes into my head, or snapped pics of every meal preparation I sit down to enjoy for the benefit of my Instagram follows. Quite honestly, I don't think I'm that interesting or have that many interesting things to say that I need to constantly make readers aware of my experiences, thoughts, and opinions. It can be incredibly difficult for me to blog with any degree of consistency without either getting bored or feeling like I'm just throwing random stuff out in the ether. I also tend to enjoy actual conversation, so the appeal of posting something and then forgetting it and moving onto the next thing without actually engaging anyone has very limited appeal.
I've been participating in some blogging groups and activities this year, which has been great because it's definitely given me something to write about without feeling like I'm dredging the bottom of the riverbed for really dull stuff that isn't relevant. And it's been great for getting other people engaged; when we're all participating and responding to the same prompts, it can be a great way to interact. I do tend to burn out quickly, though. Blogging is a great warm-up for me... it gets the creative juices flowing and helps me get into a writing mindset... but if I'm not careful, it can easily take up a lot of my writing time and then I find that I have no juice left for fiction or whatever else I've been wanting to write!
I definitely struggle with coming up with interesting thoughts on a consistent basis. I'll go through phases where I'll happily blog or tweet or post a Facebook status every day... and then I'll just need to take a break for a week or two and disappear for a while. I suppose everyone needs a break every once in a while, as long as those breaks are relatively few and far between (which is another thing I struggle with when it comes to blogging).
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: What is your dream profession and why?
I suppose that "writer" is going to be a pretty popular answer for this topic, so let me expand a little and say that I would more specifically like to be a "producer" or, even better, a "creator." I don't think I would be happy as someone who just cranked out screenplays or novels, one after the other, year after year after year. I have too many varied interests, too short of an attention span, and an excitement about too many different mediums to be satisfied with doing the same kind of thing over and over. My dream job, as a result, wouldn't be so much a writer day-to-day as much as an overall creative voice that contributes to the process in a variety of ways.
I suppose the closest analog to this kind of job would be someone like George Lucas with the Star Wars universe, or J.K. Rowling with the Harry Potter franchise. There was a point, after he created the world and watched it increase in popularity, where Lucas stopped being a "writer" per se, and instead became an overall creative director for this thing he created. He supervised writers who wrote screenplays and books, craftsmen who created merchandise, programmers who developed the technology to bring it to life, etc. Similarly, even though Rowling is still far more of a writer than Lucas is, there's a significant portion of her daily responsibilities that's involved in shaping the world of Harry Potter long after the last book has been written. I think being someone like that, where the job isn't just cranking out pages but also considering how best to realize the vision of the worlds I've created in terms of a movie, a comic book, a theme park attraction, a lunch box, a deck of playing cards, and/or a board game would be immensely fun and satisfying. It would keep me actively engaged in the art of creating something, while also allowing me to exercise my business skills.
If that weren't an option (after all, I just need to create a bestselling, blockbuster franchise property, right? ), I would want to be a writer/producer of various things, like J. Michael Straczynski, who has done everything from screenplays to novels to comic books to radio programs to stage plays. If that grand idea of mine doesn't catapult me into the stratosphere and make me the next George Lucas or J.K. Rowling, I could definitely see myself being a creative writer/producer who takes on different roles on different projects, based on whatever creative input I feel like I could lend to the project. |
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Do you consider yourself to be a happy person, generally speaking? Why or why not?
I am most definitely a happy person. I would consider myself a very happy person both compared to most other people and independently of other people. I make that distinction because I think that with concepts like these, it's important to look at yourself both in terms of the world around you and in terms of the world within you. On both counts, I think my default setting is "happy" more than anything else.
I definitely don't suffer from any kind of clinical emotional disorder. Except for the occasional temporary bouts of depression related to specific situations (being laid off, losing a loved one, etc.), I haven't been diagnosed with any kind of mood or personality disorder that leaves me with unhealthy emotional issues. Maybe that's not exactly a ringing endorsement that I can use to say I'm a happy person, but I think it's important to at least prove the negative. I'm definitely not unhappy... so that's something, right?
Next, we have to consider my general outlook on life. On the sliding scale of optimism/pessimism, I'm probably optimistic about 80% of the time, and pessimistic 20% of the time. Heck, I wouldn't even call it pessimistic as much as I would call it realistic. But in the vast majority of situations I find myself in, I have an overwhelmingly positive reaction to most things. The glass isn't half-empty, it's half-full. The guy who cuts my hair is late to our appointment, but that just means I can read a few more pages of my book. I took my car in for an oil change and found out I need an extra $200 in repair work done; thank goodness it wasn't $500! Pessimism just isn't in my nature, for the most part. Even when we're talking serious struggles (unemployment, being broke, loss of a loved one, etc.) I'm very much a silver lining, "well, it could have been worse" kind of guy when it comes to unanticipated problems.
So there's really no physiological or mental reason why happiness is a barrier to me, and those situations and frustrations that pop up in our daily lives aren't really things that bother me. I know some people who feel like their whole day is ruined if someone is late to an appointment or if an expected complication arises... but I usually find a reason not to let it bother me that much.
The last reason why I consider myself a happy person is because I tend to let go of negative emotions quickly. Anger, jealousy, suspicion, bitterness, offense... these are all emotions that do, admittedly, rise up quickly in me. But they also dissipate just as quickly. It's rare for me to hold onto a negative emotion for more than a couple hours, and even rarer that it carries over into the following day after I've gone to bed. For the most part, negativity tends to pass through me without lingering around too long.
Ultimately, it's a combination of all these things that lead me to consider myself a happy person. I have no medical impediment to being happy, I have a rather optimistic view of life in general, and those times where I am unhappy don't tend to last very long. The way I tend to see things is that life only gives you a finite amount of time to experience it, so what's the point of wasting any more of that time than necessary being unhappy? And if you are unhappy, what's the point in maintaining it rather than trying to overcome it as soon as possible?
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Tell us about the books you've read this year. Do you change genres very often? How long does it take you to read a book? Is reading a chore or a last resort against boredom, or is it a much loved and anticipated part of your day?
I'm actually having a pretty good reading year so far. Grouped by genre, the books I've finished since January 1st are:
NONFICTION
Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success by Aaron Dignan
Madboy: Tales from the Mad, Mad World of Advertising by Richard Kirschenbaum
The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) by Chris Hardwick
The Pixar Touch by David A. Price
GENERAL FICTION
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O'Toole
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
MYSTERY FICTION
Blue Monday by Nicci French
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Informationist by Taylor Stevens
SCIENCE FICTION
Deadlocked by A.R. Wise
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
METAtropolis by Jay Lake
FANTASY FICTION
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
A Quick Bite by Lynsay Sands
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Low Town by Daniel Polansky
EROTIC FICTION
The Juliette Society by Sasha Grey
"Seven Days of Service" [XGC] by Hatsuda 
CHILDREN'S/YA
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Looking at the breakdown of books I've read so far (and considering that the two books I'm currently reading are also in that genre), fantasy seems to be far and away my genre of choice this year. It's not uncommon for me to focus on one particular genre for a period of time and then move on to the next; my 2013 reading list was dominated by children/young adult titles and comics, while 2012 was mostly a year of nonfiction, etc. I have no doubt that my sudden interest in fantasy will give way to a different genre obsession at some point in the future.
I usually end up changing my genres of focus every six months to a year or so. I read plenty of other books in the meantime, but there usually ends up being a shift after half a year where I lose interest in reading the same type of thing and instead find my interests piqued by something else. As far as length of time it takes to read a book, it really varies. Most of my "reading" I do by listening to audiobooks during the three to four hours I typically spend commuting each day. I also listen to the books and 1.5x or 2x speed because I find regular speed to be tediously slow. Factoring in those audiobooks plus actual reading done on an e-reader or actual book and I'd say I probably read about a book a week. Sometimes I'll squeeze in two books a week if they're only a couple hundred pages, and others will take a long time to finish, as was the case with The Way Of Kings and The Wise Man's Fear which both weighed in at well over at thousand pages in the hardcover, and more than forty hours of reading time. Even listening to them at faster speeds, it still took weeks (plural) to finish each of those tomes.
For me, reading is relaxing and fun. I love both telling and listening to stories, so reading is only a chore when the subject matter is uninteresting to me. In most cases, watching or listening to a story unfold in a book is as entertaining for me as watching a movie or seeing a play. I don't necessarily read books every single day... sometimes I'll just read articles or comics or screenplays... but reading is an important part of my leisure time that I couldn't imagine doing without.
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ACTIVITY: "a very Wodehouse challenge"
GROUP AFFILIATION: "Welcome To My Reality Forum"
PROMPT: Have you ever traveled to another country? Where did you go and how did you like it?
Not counting a trip to Bermuda when I was too young to remember, I've been out of the country three times. I've been to Spain (Madrid), the United Kingdom (London), and France (Paris). Technically I've been to Paris twice, but the first time was just an overnight stay during our trip to London. As a whole, I've really loved the time I've spent traveling abroad. Experiencing other cultures is something that has always excited me, and something I rarely had an opportunity to do growing up, since my parents were more inclined to think of the downside than the upside. It can be frustrating being in a place where you don't speak the language, you aren't familiar with the currency, and customs can confound you. But it's also a remarkable opportunity to experience the way other people live and see things a lot of people will only ever see in photographs.
My first trip abroad was to Spain. We stayed with relatives in a small town about twenty miles outside of Madrid. We did a lot of sightseeing that trip, including several museums, a tour of Alcala de Henares (birthplace of Don Quixote author Miguel Cervantes), and a tour of the city of Segovia. I saw amazing works of art, including one of my favorite pieces, Diego Velazquez's " Las Meninas " (on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid). Fun fact: the painting is actually huge... over nine feet by ten feet in size! In Segovia we also got to see incredible pieces of architecture including the Aqueduct of Segovia, which dates all the way back to the 1st or 2nd Century. We visited Segovia Cathedral, where we saw preserved ceremonial robes that dated back hundreds of years. It was remarkable to see clothes that were older than our entire country! 
London was an interesting trip, but we didn't get that same feeling of awe as we did in Spain, mostly because I think we stayed in a more modern area of the city. It was hard to feel like we were really getting an authentic experience in another culture when we were walking down the street and passing Whole Foods, Banana Republic, and Best Buy. It was a fun trip and we got to see some great things like The Globe Theater, The Tower of London, etc., but it just didn't have the same "wow" factor as we experienced with Spain. On the plus side, everyone spoke English, so it was much easier to get around!
Paris was a wonderful experience (both times) because the pace of life there is so different. Not only is the food amazing, but people took their time to enjoy the day. Meals were leisurely; being accustomed to being bustled out of American restaurants and encouraged to eat fast, it was remarkable to have a meal that would last ninety minutes or more and where courses were brought out only after the last one had been finished and digested. We saw a lot of sights too (The Louvre and a whole host of other museums, climbed to the top of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, toured the Palace and grounds of Versailles), but the most amazing part of that trip was living - for a short time - in a country where the priority wasn't efficiency or haste, but rather savoring life's little moments and pleasures.
This summer, I'll be taking my first non-European international trip, to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have no idea what to expect on a completely different continent (and I don't speak a word of Portuguese), but I'm really looking forward to the adventures that lay ahead. I'm looking forward to meeting a new culture, seeing new sights, and experiencing a different way of life, even if only for a few weeks.
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